The thing about a journey, they tell you in creative writing courses, is that they must have a beginning, a middle and an end, and the end can be particularly important writes Candida Baker.
So to put this column in context, how it began was with me coming up with what I thought was a wonderful idea – to take my 14-year-old daughter, often referred to (at least by me) as The Princess, on a holiday which would encompass a few days staying with her cousins on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, three nights in the Snowy Mountains, and a few nights back with her aunt and uncle in the inner city before heading back home.
“What do you mean?” she asked me in anguished tones, when I first mooted the idea. “Ten days away? From my friends. TEN days! MUM.”
It wasn’t quite the response I was expecting – I thought I might get the one where they throw their arms around you and say Mum, you’re simply the best, thank you so much… which is rare as hen’s teeth of course. But still I went with the flow and insisted that well, you know she might actually have a good time.
All went surprisingly well – Sydney had its most beautiful summer colours on, the cousins took us for a day trip to Palm Beach, a day’s shopping at Warringah Mall, and several mornings at the beach, so it was pretty much teenage girl heaven, so much so that she informed that she didn’t want to leave. “You NEVER give me enough time here,” she told me crossly. “Three nights just isn’t enough.”
But then there was even more bad news. It was, I informed her a five-and-a-half hour drive from Sydney to Lake Crackenback. Now The Princess is never at her best early in the morning – and by early I mean 9.00 am – so it was a grumpy driving companion I set off with down the Highway of Life (otherwise known as the Hume Highway). “I am going to be SO bored,” she said, as we turned the corner from her aunt’s house. “I’ve got a headache.” Another thought, much worse, suddenly occurred to her. “What about my tan? Mum? ARE YOU LISTENING? What if it’s not sunny, and I go pale. I’ve got to go back to school with a tan.” She slumped back into her seat, and stared out of the window. I decided discretion was the better part of valour, and kept quiet. “Why aren’t you talking to me?” she whined. I started a cheerful cascade of conversation. “You’re talking too much, my head hurts.” I bit my lip.
After an hour or so we got to oh yes, folks, I’m sorry to tell you, that purveyor of caffeine and hot chips, McDonalds – and I stocked up. I reckoned I was going to need it. I also bought The Princess a hot chocolate. I’m not sure if the McDonald’s staff could see the desperation etched on my face, but I’m pretty sure they slipped her a shot of caffeine, because within minutes of finishing her drink, she was on a roll. She put her hands either side of her face and stuck her face on the side window. “I’m getting rays,” she said. “Just in case.” She face-timed her BFF and gave her a tour of the car. “This is a glovebox,” she said gleefully, “this is a gearstick, this is a steering wheel…” The BFF put up with it valiantly until finally she invented another pressing engagement, and sensibly left the conversation.
“Oh My God…Mum…look out of the window. It’s snowing!” I glanced out of the car’s side window, and in the breeze the silver undersides of the shrubs lining the road did indeed look as if they had been dusted with snow. “It’s not snowing,” I said. “It’s just the leaves look white.”
“I’m sure it’s snowing,” she said.
I suggested that perhaps in order for there to be snow freezing temperatures had to occur somewhere and that was perhaps unlikely in the height of summer. “Oh,” she said, crestfallen. There was a moment’s quiet. “Do you think I’ll be able to get a tan in the mountains?”
I couldn’t help it. “Minus 20,” I said. “Your tan is a Minus 20 World Problem….”
Fortunately for both of us, somehow the hours had passed by, somehow we’d arrived at our destination. As soon as we were there she didn’t want to leave.
“I’m spiritually connected to this place,” she told me, gazing in awe at the mountains and the lake. “Do you think we could come and live here? Why are we only staying here three nights?”
I gazed in equal awe at her. I suddenly thought of my mother, with four girls – all of us at one point self-obsessed teenagers at exactly the same time. No wonder she turned to whisky I thought. I wondered about the teenage brain – which seems to be able to live in the past, present and future simultaneously and still keep the important issues, like tanning, top of mind as they say.
It was a journey. It had a beginning. It had a middle and thank goodness it had an end. Well, a temporary one because there was another journey to come – the drive home. But I’ll spare you all and leave it to your imagination.
(Read next week’s issue of Verandah Magazine for my travel story on the Snowy Mountains in summer.)
